Even penguin book can cause a stir

Wednesday

Aug 29, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2007 at 12:12 PM

NEW YORK -- Not all penguin stories are equal in the public's mind.

NEW YORK -- Not all penguin stories are equal in the public's mind.

And Tango Makes Three, an award-winning children's book based on a true story about two male penguins who raised a baby penguin, topped the American Library Association's annual list of works attracting the most complaints from parents, library patrons and others.

Overall, the number of "challenged" books in 2006 jumped to 546, more than 30 percent higher than the previous year's total, 405, although still low compared to the mid-1990s, when challenges topped 750.

And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was published in 2005 and named by the ALA as one of the year's best children's books. But parents and educators have complained that Tango Makes Three advocates homosexuality, with challenges reported in Southwick, Mass., Shiloh, Ill., and elsewhere.

The ALA defines a "challenge" as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." For every challenge listed, about four to five go unreported, according to the library association. Judith Krug, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said 30 books actually were banned last year.

"Books aren't banned nearly as much now as they used to be because communities are much more active in fighting that," Krug said about the bans, which can lead to books being removed from both school and public libraries.

Other books on the 2006 list include two by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved, both cited for language and sexual content; Cecily von Ziegesar's popular Gossip Girls series, criticized for sexual content and language; and Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, for language, violence and sex.

Krug said there were widespread reports that librarians were banning Susan Patron's The Higher Power of Lucky, the story of a 10-year-old's physical and spiritual journey. Librarians had complained on an Internet list serve about the book's use of the word scrotum, the sac holding a man's testicles.

The ALA, the American Booksellers Association and others will hold their 26th annual Banned Books Week from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6, highlighting works that have been banned or threatened.